It’s that time again! Time to review the last year’s reading habits.
Each year, I track what I read. I post the list here. I jot down some thoughts, and then I rinse and repeat year after year. (I explain the reasoning and history of this habit a bit more in last year’s post.)
(Previous My Year In Books posts: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016.)
No long preamble this time. Here’s the list…
GRAPHIC NOVELS/*Completed Comic Book Miniseries
JANUARY
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 10 Vol. 6: Own It [Dark Horse]
JULY
Suicide Sisters Vol. 1: Shoot The Devil [Self-published]
Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt [Marvel]
Spider-Man: Sinister Six [Marvel]
One Punch Man Vol. 10 [Viz]
One Punch Man Vol. 11 [Viz]
Jessica Jones Vol. 1: Uncaged! [Marvel]
Defenders by Matt Fraction Vol. 1 [Marvel]
Defenders by Matt Fraction Vol. 2 [Marvel]
The Fearless Defenders Vol. 1: Doom Maidens [Marvel]
The Fearless Defenders Vol. 2: The Most Fabulous Fighting Team of All [Marvel]
AUGUST
Power Man and Iron Fist Vol. 1: The Boys are Back in Town [Marvel]
Power Man and Iron Fist Vol. 2: Civil War II [Marvel]
The Last Defenders [Marvel]
Marvel Masterworks: The Defenders Vol. 1 [Marvel]
Cage! [Marvel]
Avengers/Defenders War [Marvel]
Iron Fist: The Living Weapon Vol. 1: Rage [Marvel]
Iron Fist: The Living Weapon Vol. 2: Redemption [Marvel]
SEPTEMBER
Cage [Marvel Max]
Doctor Strange and the Secret Defenders [Marvel]
Defenders: Indefensible [Marvel]
Punisher: Circle of Blood [Marvel]
Daredevil vs. Punisher: Means and Ends [Marvel]
PunisherMAX Vol. 1: Kingpin [Marvel]
PunisherMAX Vol. 2: Bullseye [Marvel]
Punisher Max: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 [Marvel]
NOVEMBER
Last Man Vol 6: The Rescue [First Second]
NOVELS/PROSE
JANUARY
Kitchens of the Great Midwest [Pamela Dorman/Viking]
The Princess Diarist [Blue Rider Press]
Wishful Drinking [Simon & Schuster Paperbacks]
Hogwarts: An Incomplete & Unreliable Guide [Pottermore Presents]*
Consumed [Self-published/Wet Frog Studios]
Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics, and Pesky Poltergeists [Pottermore Presents]*
Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship, and Dangerous Hobbies [Pottermore Presents]*
FEBRUARY
The Expectant Father: The Ultimate Guide for Dads-To-Be [Abbeville Press]
The Guy’s Guide to Surviving Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the First Year of Fatherhood [De Capo/Perseus]
Between the World and Me [Spiegel & Grau/Penguin Random House]
The Casual Vacancy [Little, Brown]
Lyra’s Oxford [Knopf]*
The Collectors: A His Dark Materials Story [Knopf]*
Calm The F*ck Down: The Only Parenting Technique You’ll Ever Need [Knock Knock]
MARCH
The Old Man and the Sea [Scribner]
‘Salem’s Lot [Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster]
APRIL
Once Upon A Time in the North [Knopf]
MAY
Career of Evil [Mulholland Books/Little, Brown]
The Happiest Baby on the Block [Bantam Books]
A Man Without A Country [Random House]
JUNE
The Torrents of Spring [Scribner/Simon & Schuster]
SEPTEMBER
On the Shortness of Life: Life is Long if You Know How to Use It [Penguin Great Ideas]
Fox 8: A Story [Random House]*
The Diaries of Adam and Eve [Dover]
OCTOBER
The Call of Cthulhu [Amazon Kindle Edition/Rising Star Visionary Press]*
The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the First Year [Abbeville Press]
NOVEMBER
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life [Anchor Books/Random House]
Ollie’s Odyssey [Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books]
DECEMBER
A Fistful of Fig Newtons [Broadway Books]
Notes from the Upside Down: An Unofficial Guide to Stranger Things [Touchstone]
*Kindle single/novella
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
JANUARY
Where the Sidewalk Ends [HarperCollins]
Hop On Pop [Beginner Books/Random House]
Oh Say Can You Say? [Beginner Books/Random House]
Dr. Seuss’s ABC [Beginner Books/Random House]
I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! [Random House]
The Cat in the Hat [Beginner Books/Random House]
The Giving Tree [HarperCollins]
FEBRUARY
A is for Activist [Triangle Square/Seven Stories Press]
If I Built A Car [Dutton/Penguin]
When Dinosaurs Came With Everything [Atheneum]
MARCH
Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs! [Workman Publishing]
APRIL
Good Night, Gorilla [G.P. Putnam’s Sons/Penguin]
Bed, Bed, Bed [Simon & Schuster]
Oh Say Can You Seed?: All About Flowering Plants [Cat in the Hat Learning Library/Random House]
Little Owl (Finger Puppet Book) [Chronicle]
10 Little Rubber Ducks [Harper Collins]
Little Blue Truck [HMH Books]
The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s ABC [Grosset & Dunlap]
Harold and the Purple Crayon [Bloomsbury]
Curious George and the Pizza Party [HMH]
I Am a Bunny [Golden Books]
Pride & Prejudice: A BabyLit Counting Primer [Gibbs Smith]
MAY
I Heart You, Mom: with the Very Hungry Caterpillar [Grosset & Dunlap]
Colors [Ammo Books]
Alphaprints: ABC [Priddy Books]
JUNE
The Big Orange Splot [Scholastic]
My Dad Loves Me! [Sourcebooks Jabberwocky]
JULY
Oh, The Places You’ll Go! [Random House]
The Lorax [Random House]
All About Corduroy [Barnes & Noble Books]
Henry Builds a Cabin [HMH]
The Day the Crayons Quit [Philomel Books]
The Day the Crayons Came Home [Philomel Books]
The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear [Child’s Play]
Quick as a Cricket [Child’s Play]
Fiesta Secreta de Pizza [Puffin]
King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub [Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]
AUGUST
Animal Alphabet: Slide & Seek the ABCs [WS Publishing]
Baby: Colors! [DK Publishing]
SEPTEMBER
Little Blue Truck’s Halloween [HMH Books]
Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World [Scholastic Press]
OCTOBER
I See Something… Green [Self-Published]
Spooky Friends [Scholastic]
Goodnight Moon [HarperCollins]
Eating the Alphabet [HMH Books for Young Readers]
NOVEMBER
The Snowy Day [Puffin Books]
Dream Animals: A Bedtime Journey [Random House]
Hello, World! Solar System [Random House]
Baby Beluga [Knopf]
Count to Sleep Chicago [Our World of Books]
I Love You, Stinky Face [Cartwheel]
First Words Lift-A-Flap [Cottage Door Press]
McElligot’s Pool [Random House]
Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book [Random House]
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back [Random House]
Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories [Random House]
I Had Trouble In Getting To Solla Sollew [Collins]
DECEMBER
Santa Claus Is on His Way to My House! [Sourcebooks Jabberwocky]
Little Blue Truck’s Christmas [HMH Books for Young Readers]
Dream Snow [Philomel Books]
How the Grinch Stole Christmas [Random House]
Mr. Silly [Price Stern Sloan]
Mr. Tickle [Price Stern Sloan]
Mr. Greedy [Price Stern Sloan]
Day Dreamers: A Journey of Imagination [Random House]
The Bad Seed [Harper Collins]
Mr. Happy [Price Stern Sloan]
Mr. Topsy-Turvy [Price Stern Sloan]
Mr. Snow [Price Stern Sloan]
Mr. Sneeze [Price Stern Sloan]
Mr. Nosey [Price Stern Sloan]
That’s a final tally of 129 books: 28 graphic novels, 30 prose books/novellas, 71 children’s books. Pretty good for a new parent! Excited to see how year two of being a reading parent goes! Excited for ALL THE PICTURE BOOKS!!! and for when Ollie hits the age where he’s interested in children’s novels!
Observations
-
Naturally, lots of children’s books this year, which were a lot of fun. Probably a lot more of these over the next ten years! Going to be hitting the library a lot in 2018!
Almost all of my comic reading this year was research for podcasting, so very few new releases and a lot of older Marvel stuff. Hoping to read more new stuff in 2018!
Prose-wise, my goal was to read 50 different prose publications — the ambitious goal of a guy whose son wasn’t born yet. Things got pretty busy after Ollie arrived! I read some novellas to try and pad the number. It didn’t get me to the impossible book-a-week goal of a sleep-deprived new dad, but it got my reading some new, different stuff in a new format. Don’t sleep on short reads. I’m all about shorts now!
Once again, I read a lot of parenting books. And books with parenting themes, like Bird by Bird and Between the World and Me.
Rhyming books are the most fun children’s books to read, so Dr. Seuss was naturally my most read author with 13 books. Over 25 of the new kid’s books I read Ollie this year were rhyme-based — which is nice when you’re reading these books about 10 to 50 times over the course of the year.
Having a kid led to some more philosophical/big thinking reads like A Man Without A Country, On the Shortness of Life: Life is Long if You Know How to Use It, and again, Bird by Bird and Between the World and Me. I definitely see this trend continuing for the next few years, at least!
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